


Pacifier

by RattyRagDoll



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Sexual Content, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:47:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27324490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RattyRagDoll/pseuds/RattyRagDoll
Summary: The nukes drop, and all that's left to them is each other.
Relationships: Female Deputy | Judge/Joseph Seed
Comments: 12
Kudos: 56





	1. One

She had been nothing but a living corpse for the past… Rook wasn’t sure. Time had no meaning in the bunker, not when all she could see behind closed lids was fire and death, when all she could hear were the last frantic and fearful screams of her colleagues. All she had now, was Joseph. He gave all he had left to her, nursed her back to health when she was too weak and too far gone in her grief to care whether she lived or died.

When she first woke, Joseph had her cuffed to Dutch’s bed. A useless precaution when she was too injured and lacked the strength or will to harm him, and as he stared her down—after naming her his child and he her father—as Dutch’s blood had spread and soaked into her jeans, Rook knew hell awaited her for all she had wrought upon Hope County in the previous months.

She tried to slip away into herself. Joseph had expected her wrath and pride, sins that she had worn like a badge of honour, and all he got was a woman broken, unresponsive and content to waste away as he cleaned her wounds and forcibly nourished her with food and water. Eventually he moved her onto the bed, stroked her hair away from her face and murmured soft words into her ear she couldn’t make out.

More often than not, Rook hears him cry at night. Long after he finishes praying and has gone to bed, Joseph wakes from dreams, shouting out for one of his brothers and then jerking breaths as tears come, and no matter how she tries to ignore his pain, her heart clenches in the most awful way. She hates that she no longer has it within her to abhor him, that she feels empathy for a man so devastatingly evil and wicked. But he doesn’t deserve mercy and neither does she, two peas in a pod as the world rots above them. She tries so hard to disregard his anguish, hides her face in her pillow and clenches her eyes shut, hides away from it until sleep, at last, claims her. 

When he finally deigns her not to be a threat, he sets her free. Fits the key into her cuffs and twists until one pops open. He backs away, leaving her now unrestricted hand to finish the job, handgun holstered at his thigh where fingers twitch but don’t clasp as he bumps into the wall on the other side of the room, still wary and watchful as he sets the beast loose.

He takes a breath as she stands, weak legs trembling beneath her while she rubs at her wrists. Rook meets his wide-eyed stare, black eclipsing blue, and then hobbles her way to the bathroom where she shuts herself away. She uses the toilet on her own for the first time since the nukes dropped, curls into a ball and lets the lukewarm water from the shower wash away her tears as she cries and cries until her throat convulses in pain, retches, and her eyes sting.

She reaches up, turns the nozzles to off, swipes the shower curtain aside and crawls from the shower. Joseph has silently dropped in at some point, laid out a towel and clothes—ill-fitting but clean sweats and checkered shirt that she’ll swim in. Socks and men’s briefs, but no bra, Dutch having no need for such items even if he had made the bunker big enough for himself and his sons’ young family, for his niece—scarred and vengeful—Jess.

Rubbing at sore eyes, Rook leaves the bathroom. Drags herself forward and breathes deeply the distinct smell of fried bacon that’s permeated throughout the bunker as she comes to lean in the doorway. Joseph’s there, sitting at the table with hands clasped before him and the Whitetails adorning the wall behind him, tentative smile slightly curving his lips. He beckons her, motions the chair opposite and she slides into it gracelessly, heavily, making the chair creek beneath her.

“Powdered eggs,” he states, smile faltering as he picks up his fork and she stares down at the food with disinterest. “Admittedly not my favourite way to eat eggs, but it’s as good as we are going to get for a while.” He speaks softly, calmly, but his leg jostles beneath the table, nervousness giving way through one uncooperative limb.

His fork drops, clatters as it hits the table and he’s reaching across, has her hand tightly grasped in his before she can think to pull away. Such a warm hand, calloused thumb coming to brush along smooth skin in soothing circles. “The bacon is real. Please, my child, eat. You still have strength to regain.” He practically begs her, bright blue eyes beseeching.

Rooks wants to walk away then, hates when he calls her ‘my child’, as if she is one of his flock, one of his faithful. Joseph Seed may have been right about the world going up in flames, but there is still enough of her old self left that makes her flinch at the implication that she will follow him as others have—blindly, on her knees before him and adoration hazing her eyes.

_No. No, no, no._ But she can’t walk away, can’t find the motivation to. Guilt gnaws at her insides, and she _can’t_ take any more away from him than she already has—for his sake as well as her own. So, Rook picks up her fork, scoops up some eggs and places them in her mouth. Chews and swallows mechanically as he lets her hand go, leg ceasing its jostling as he hums in contentment.

Rooks flits through the bunker after that, passing from room to room as if a ghost. Joseph watches her, always from afar, willing to give her space as long as she eats, bathes, and gets out of bed, fingers twitching at his side as if he wants to reach for her but holds himself back. He cooks for her, lays out clean clothes and changes the sheets on her bed. He takes care of her, gives her all that he has left to give, and she gives him nothing in return but a broken and silent woman to live out the remainder of the nuclear winter with.

It seems to be enough for him, as Joseph never asks her for more.

**********

Their faces pass across her mind when she closes her eyes. Sleep doesn’t come easy for Rook, nor for long. She sees them—Joey and Pratt, Whitehorse, Nick, and Kim, Sharky, Hurk. _So many more_. John… Jacob and Faith. Rook thinks about how she could have done things differently, how she should have tried to broker peace instead of rampaging through the county and killing anything that looked like a Peggie and moved. But hindsight is a fucking bitch, right? And it hadn’t been easy at first, when she was scared and alone, just The Junior Deputy and not The Deputy.

(She refuses to think of her family. She tries not to think about Dutch—still doesn’t know what Joseph did with his body, but the bunker has never stunk of rotting flesh, so she knows he disposed of it in some way, would be worried that Dutch would be part of her evening meal if she were here with Jacob and not Joseph. Severed limbs wrapped and stored away in the freezer for later. _Just in case_ , Jacob would think, planning for the worst.)

Rook thinks she has failed them all, resistance, and cult alike, should of payed more attention to what was being said on the radio instead of picking off Peggie’s as she drove from one region to the next, because it had become _so easy_ to see them as faceless men and women swathed in shades of beige and black. Gunned them down like they were nothing more than an infestation of bugs that needed to be stomped out.

She gasps then, stomach lurching and a sob escapes her cramping throat, because she wants to cry but won’t allow herself to, tries to hold back the tears that are now rimming her eyes. And she hears him shout out, feels his hurt seep through right to her core, entwining with her own as if their sad souls belong together. Maybe they do, she thinks. Maybe they are both so terrible they are kindred, for despite what his family has done, who they were— _monsters_ —she will not fault him for loving them. They were his, he was theirs and now he is no ones.

Rook wants to see if his pain looks the same as hers, wants to know if his tears taste the same on her lips—salty, underlined with a bitterness that only the truly wrecked carry within them. This want carries her silently to his room, has her lingering in his doorway as he shudders, head clasped in his hands. What makes him look her way she will never know, tears glistening at his eyes and twitching fingers finally reach out to her, pulling her towards him as if magnetised, has her crawling onto his bunk and she’s barely made it on before he is gathering her in his arms, pulling her into his bare chest and pushing his face into her hair.

Joseph doesn’t question when she leans her head away, looks up at him and scoops up a tear with the pad of her thumb, sucks it into her mouth and _oh_. They do—his tears, the bitterness pricks at her taste buds and _they are the same._ His despair is a twin of her own, dimming his eyes and creating large dark circles beneath them and she never knew, never realised how alone she felt until now, now when she knows she isn’t. Because they are kindred, the same lost and wretched souls and she clings to him now, presses her face back against his chest and rests her hand low on his stomach as he brushes long fingers through her tear dampened hair.

Rook can feel _SLOTH_ beneath her cheek, _LUST_ beneath her palm. She doesn’t sleep, satisfied to let Joseph hold her tightly until sleep takes him, his arms loosening around her—chest rising and falling steadily as her mind clears of all thought, nothing left there but the lull of his heartbeat.

When he wakes, when toned arms snake back around her waist and a “thank you,” is murmured into her hair, Rook doesn’t feel the shame or anger towards herself that she probably should. How much blood has covered the hands that link together at the small of her back? How much suffering has been caused by the man they belong too—how many lives taken? Rook flexes her own hands, remembers how often she’s scrubbed dried blood from them, remembers how many lives she’s taken with them as they _pleaded_. She can not judge him, for she is his mirror in sin. Intentions not withstanding, her hands are far from clean.

He cooks for her, lays out clean clothes and changes the sheets on her bed. He takes care of her, gives her all that he has left to give, and Rook—she lets him hold her at night. Lets him burrow against her and cry into her hair until he falls asleep. Rook gives something in return to Joseph Seed.


	2. Two

It’s easy to fall into a routine. Rook readies herself for bed in her room, drifts into Joseph’s afterwards where he paces from one end to the other, nervous energy radiating off of him until he sees her there in his doorway. He stills, bunched muscles relaxing, reaches out to her and she slots her hand into his own. It’s a tight fit on the bunk but they make it work, curl into one another until there isn’t a breath of space between them.

Eventually Joseph’s tears cease, she becomes enough for him and instead of crying for his family he tells her of what he tries to pass off as innocent childhood stories—a horrific ordeal for children, but they made of it what they could. He’s so good at it, putting a humorous spin on each memory and enveloping her in the soft and steady cadence of his voice, slipping in and out of a warm southern drawl the tireder he becomes, and Rook understands now how all those people fell for him, how they hung on his every word because _she does_ , lets him drag her into a restful sleep each night only to wake in his arms, all bed-warmed and rosy cheeked.

It feels as if he is becoming the center of her world. The only thing left tethering her, and she grasps at those fragile wisps of sanity, wants to clutch them to her breast, determined to keep what little of herself Rook has left. _He_ has given her that, pulled her through the ashes when she would have wilted away without such care, _such dedication_. There has never been another like him, no other that has put all they have into her, even if it is for selfish reasons because she is all that is left. Still, how could she ever compare to that—how could she ever give enough back?

“I wish you’d tell me of yourself,” he whispers into the curve of her neck one night, and Rook wants to. Wants to share with him as he has her, wants him to see what’s beneath the blood, the wrath and pride—the broken.

She wants to tell him how she loved to climb high as a child but was always too fearful to ever make the descent back down, how she was too stubborn to ask for help and would stay stuck up in a tree for hours. Wants to tell him that she has—had—a brother too. David—older and stronger, punched the first boy that ever broke her heart in the nose. Was disgruntled when he’d admitted he thought her pretty and then firmly told her no more boys until she’s twenty. Stood beneath the tree and told her to _just drop, Anna, I’ll catch you_. Hugged her goodbye, _I’ll see you soon_ , before she got in her car and headed for Hope County.

She wants to tell him, but all that comes out when she opens her mouth—throat muscles working harder than she remembers them having to as she tries to produce words— is a fractured croak. It terrifies her, has her gasping and wide-eyed, manic looking as she shoots up and stares down at him.

He tries to soothe her, with gentle hands and kind eyes as he pulls her back to him. “Shhh, it’s okay. It’s just been a while. It’s okay, try again.” And his hand makes sweeping motions up and down the length of her back, fingers skipping over each bump of her spine, protruding through thin and pale skin more than they used to. They’ve both become slighter, Josephs hip bones sharper, digging into the softness of her thigh where she has it draped over him, and Rook is suddenly thinking of things she should of when Joseph had freed her—sharp bones bringing reality into sharp relief.

He encourages her once more, hand coming to rest at the dip of her waist where he gives a light squeeze while she skips through the details of the bunker Dutch had given her in what seems a lifetime ago. How much food, fuel—how much time they have left here before they are as good as dead as those above. Rook thinks she won’t mind dying, not sure if she has the guts and grit that’d be required to live above ground in a post-apocalyptic world, not anymore.

Starving wouldn’t be her preferred option if she were to have a say in the matter. She just hopes that it’s her that goes first. She doesn’t think she could cope with watching Joseph waste away before her, doesn’t want to see him take his last breath. She has seen too many die, whether intentionally by her hands or inadvertently by her actions and inactions.

And then she knows, Rook knows she will willingly take her own life if it means their supplies would last longer, if it means he would have a better chance at survival, and she wonders if he knows exactly what she would give for him to simply live—for her to be able to save at least _one person_ , even if that person may be seen as repulsive as he—for his sake as well as her own.

He had been _right_ , and doesn’t the world need someone like Joseph Seed, a man who can foresee cataclysmic events before they happen. She has nothing more to offer the world, nothing left within her to give, only enough left for him. Jacob had said that she’d made her sacrifice, cooing, and grinning at her—smug—as she’d held her gun in a quaking grip. Eli dead—dying—suspended before her as the world stood still. But how could he know? She _had_ to be made for something bigger than Eli’s death, and this, what is left can’t be the end. _It can’t_. Because Joseph had been right, and she had been so _utterly wrong_.

There is a selfishness to her too when it comes to Joseph because he has now become hers. Hers to decide whether he lives or dies, and God help her, she wants him to live. He’s _hers_ to save, and that selfishness has Rook clearing her throat, has her fingers digging into his flank because there is an irrational fear deep within her, telling her she has forever lost the ability to speak.

“How—” and it’s nothing more than a hoarse rasp, as if someone had wrapped their hand around her throat and throttled her until her tracheal was bruised and torn. “—how long?”

He hums and Rook thinks she can hear a smile behind it, hand stirring again, gliding along the span of her side. Feather-light and tickling when he reaches her ribs. “Months. Seven months of silence, of not hearing your—”

Rook is scrambling away from him before he can finish, clambering over Joseph as she launches herself from the bed, hair tangling in the springs of the bunk above, ripping from her scalp, but she scarcely registers the pain. _Seven months_. No, it can’t have been that long. Hadn’t he only just released her, hadn’t he only just popped open the cuff from around her wrist?

Panic rises, suffocating her like a thick smoke, making her gasps thin and ragged as socks slide along the concrete floor, too big sweats falling to hang low on her hips as she runs. Rook hears him following behind, shouting out to her, southern accent now as thick as her stifling dread in his worry, bare feet padding heavily. She’s faster though, faster than him, lighter on her feet—even after _seven months_ of inactivity—and she reaches the shelving that house some of their supplies while Joseph is still trying to catch up. Shaking hands grasp at cans and jars as Rook begins to count, begins to ration, to make sure that there is enough.

But then he’s there, barreling into her, arms wrapping around her and twisting their bodies as they fall to the ground. She lands on top of him, the impact forcing out a grunt along with her breath and he’s feverishly mumbling something against the side of her face as she struggles against him, his fingers desperately digging into her back, hard enough to cause tweaks of discomfort as his warm breaths puff out to dampen her cheek.

“Don’t leave,” he says over and over again. “Don’t leave me, my child, I’ll have nothing left. You, you’re all I have. Please,” and he’s begging her, not for the first time, his words breaking on a quailing sob.

Rook tries to position her legs on either side of his own, to push herself up as she plants her hands on his chest, but he holds her so damn tightly and she can’t move, thoughts fluttering through her head too quickly to simply grasp at one. She won’t leave him, not yet, not if she can help it. _You’re all I have left, too_. She wants to tell him she’s sorry, so sorry for turning him into the wreck of a man he’s now become. But all that comes out is her name, a sudden blaring need to tell him that _she is more than that_. Because he has become so much more to her. Doesn’t he understand? After all they have done to one another, after they have torn so savagely at one another’s souls until they shattered. They had to be more than The Father and his Child.

“My name… don’t call me… My name is _Joanna_.”

And then her energy is spent, nose twitching as his sprinkling of chest hair dances along her nostrils with each one of her heavy exhales, the sudden burst of adrenaline leaving her fatigued and drawn, slumping over his body. His grip lessens, fingers that dug into her as if he wanted to burry them beneath her skin, to latch onto her for eternity—never to let go, gradually ease away until he’s holding her gently, cradling her in his arms as one would a frightened animal.

“Joanna,” he repeats, drawing it out long and smooth, trying to taste each individual syllable as it drags over his tongue, her name a brand new flavour passing between his lips. It dawns on her then as he brings his hand to smooth down wild, snarled hair, that she fits in so perfectly with his family—Jacob, Joseph, John, and Joanna—all biblical and all of them abominable, not fit for such namesakes.

“Were you going to leave me, hmm, Joanna? Take as much as you could and flee our bunker— _flee_ _me_?” There is a tightness in Joseph’s voice, fingers curling in her hair and bearing down until his hand is pushing so incredibly harshly against her skull that she can’t hold back the whimper that escapes as she whispers a tremulous, “no,” apprehension lancing through her, setting each nerve ending buzzing, warning, warning and _warning_ for her to get away.

He seems to catch himself then, hand unfurling, back to the tender stroking through her hair, catching on knots that he attempts to untangle with deft fingers. Each one of his inhalations begin to calm, her head rising and falling along with his chest, his heartbeat echoing as silence falls over them, as if the swallow she rests her head upon is fluttering its wings against her ear.

“I’m sorry,” he finally says. “I try, but sometimes my sins get the better of me.” A singular finger traces along the line of her jaw before he’s cupping her cheek, tilting her face up until he can brush the lightest of kisses along her forehead and Rook wonders if he can taste the salt of her skin on his lips—just as she had his tears—if he can smell her trepidation through her sweat, because she had forgotten this man gouged another’s eyes out with his bare hands, that he condemned an entire county to war with a singular sentence. Rook remembered he’s a monster but forgot how truly monstrous he could be.

“Did I hurt you?” Nothing but a nod in response and Joseph releases a weighty sigh, a shudder running through his body that reverberates throughout her own. “I’m sorry,” he says again, stilted and slow—quietly, unused to apologising as he is, and she thinks she can discern a hint of shame in his tone as he pushes himself up, palms slapping against the chilled floor.

She moves with him until they are both upright and on some unspoken word they separate, Rook scooting to the side so she can lean against the shelving, metal poking into the blades of her shoulders as Joseph sits opposite, rubbing at his beard before catching her eye. Too bright blue eyes meeting brown, and there is a sincerity there that never existed outside this bunker. Oh, there was always a conviction and sureness in their depths—a man that wholeheartedly believed in his own word shining through pupil and iris, but she had never experienced any kind of genuineness from him when it came to herself. Of course, he had offered her salvation—a place within his flock—voice soft and pleasant but eyes cold and hollow.

This sincerity though, this shame, it fills Rook up, pushes her unease aside and hardens her stare, fair brows scrunching together as her lips thin. It gives her confidence that he may not still be so cold and hollow, that seven months of care may have actually meant something. She can see his regret, can see how he fights within himself and neither of them are going to get through this if they can’t forgive, if they can’t trust. Too much irrevocable pain has passed between them, enough for wrath to brim to the surface, for them to tear each other apart if they were to let it. She can’t allow it, the golden cross around her neck burning into her chest, because he was _fucking right,_ and he could be right again.

Rook lifts her chin, stares him down the same as he did her when she first woke after the world had begun to burn. “You will not touch me like that again,” and he’s looking away from her, teeth grinding and jaw working with the effort. “Joseph, do you understand me? Never. Again.”

“Yes,” he hisses before releasing a shaky breath, fingers that had been so gentle, that had then turned biting—rough, come to play idly with the cord of his sweats. “I was… fearful,” and then he is smiling ruefully in her direction. “I am not accustomed to being told off,” he admits on a bitter chuckle, “but I suppose if I am to be told off by anyone it would be you. I had thought you a little lamb, but you were always more resilient than I gave you credit for. I should have known your compliance wouldn’t last long.”

It would seem his bitterness is infectious because Rook can feel a snarl traveling up through her core, but she is determined to hold onto it. Even if she finds herself choking, Rook will not sink to his level of child-like sullenness—upset because she is no longer his perfectly yielding doll.

He is imperfect and so is she, tainted by a past of atrocious deeds and there is no turning away, no winding back the clock. They are interwoven now, more so than when they were clashing against one another, bodies upon bodies pilling up on either side, the dead creating an arena around the county as they took from one another—both fighting to survive. But they can’t do that here, can’t take. To survive they have to give, to accept one another for what they were and what they are.

Rook holds onto the acidity that rises from her gut, catches it in her throat and swallows it back down, snarl receding as she gets to her knees and shuffles towards him. Catches Joseph’s hand in her own, lacing her fingers between his, weaving them together in a mimicry of their souls and she takes a chance—loops her other hand around his neck on an inhale, slowly brings their foreheads together, noses bumping until they are sharing the scant space of air between their lips.

“I’m sorry for what I’ve done, for what I’ve taken from you. I didn’t believe you; I was wrong. But I’m listening now.” She lets fingers brush over the hairs that have come loose from the knot at the back of his head, her breath mingling with his own as his hand slides up her back, barely there and skimming until he’s clasping loosely at her neck, fingers tangling in the gilded chain that holds her faith. 

“I know it’s just us, you’re all I have. But I can’t let you touch me like that. We’re family now, Joseph—just like you said. We have to take care of one another, _for both our sakes_.”

He gasps a quivering sigh, tightens his clasping hand yet remains gentle. The harshness from earlier long gone as he drops his head, rests the line of his nose beneath her jaw. “Yes,” he says, repeats it multiple times with a fervor edging into his voice that she’s heard from him before—almost a past life now, in a world they had to leave behind.

“ _Yes_ ,” Joseph says one last time as dry lips quiver at the soft curve where shoulder meets neck, arms settling around her waist, the bite of his fingertips at her ribs as he pulls Rook in to hold her within his lap. “ _Family_.”

And it becomes _so easy_ to fall into a routine after that, to fall into him. After Rook has recovered from the exhaustion that she’s plunged into, the stamina it takes to be a near fully functioning person after so long of not being present taking its toll on her. After he’s assured her that they will be okay — “Mr. Roosevelt was an effective prepper,” Joseph says coolly, calm as if he hadn’t murdered the man himself and that should scare her, but it’s too late for that. She knows this of him, expects it—has already accepted him though a veritable beast he may be.

After a day of reading, listening to Dutch’s extensive record collection as they compete at board games and cards, Rook readies herself for bed in what has become _their_ room, modesty left in the world that’s turned to cinders and ash, yet he is gentleman enough, a man of god enough to turn his back to hers while she switches out her button-up shirt for a well worn t-shirt, thinning and soft where it hangs from her shoulders, Joseph placing to his forehead the pictures of his siblings that Dutch had gathered until she calls his name and reaches out to him.

He slots his hand in hers, pulls her against his front after they have settled onto their sides, face buried in hair that Rook now brushes daily, his beard pricking against her scalp. And she sleeps well encircled in his arms, better than she ever thought she would after all that she has done. Sleeps so well that Joseph is always up before her in the mornings, clock ticking well past eight when she opens her eyes and is greeted by him upon his knees, murmuring quiet prayers to the bunker ceiling.

She pads over to him, footsteps light and feet instantly cold as soon as they connect with the concrete floor, kneels at his side, shoulders brushing together while she clasps her hands, head titled down.

“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardship as a pathway to peace; taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender to Your will; so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with You forever in the next.”

Joseph takes hold of her chin, slants her face upwards, meets her eyes when she opens them and brushes hair off her cheeks. “Amen,” he finishes for her on a whisper.

“Do you think He will forgive us?” Rook asks, hopes—prays for it daily, and he’s smiling down at her, earnestly, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Always,” he assures, and she leans into him, tucks her head beneath his chin, fingers the cross atop her chest and she feels _safe_.

Rook isn’t sure what that says about her, that she can feel safe with Joseph, that she’s not scared. She isn’t sure what it says about her when she wakes one night, feels him hard and nestled where her bum slopes into her thigh and she instantly feels a telltale pulse between her legs. The days—the months have slipped by, and for the first time in a while, Rook feels absolutely terrified.


End file.
